Dead MH370 pilot do tell tales (5 Scenarios and more) POLL

MH370 – Which scenario was most likely to had happened POLL?

On March 8th, 2014, the day of the disappearance of MH370 I attended my cousin’s wedding in Ipoh, Malaysia. I remembered he had “the LAST supper” with 5 of China’s Freescale Semiconductor managers and 2 from Malaysia earlier. These 7 and 13 others were on MH370.

Many questions were asked about what really happened to MH370, and even harder to answer is why it happened that way.

Let’s be real honest every Tom, Dick and Harry in Malaysia, China and the world is talking and debating about possible scenarios. We all want to know the truth no matter how painful it is. But truth is greatly lacking coming from the Malaysian authorities who confirm and then retract or modify statements e.g. the last words of the pilot – giving the impression they have something to hide, or spin. Luckily my cousin was not on MH370, if not you can be sure that I’ll take the government to task.

People’s lives are unsettled when they do not know the painful truth.

I’m having ongoing discussions with international experts and some American investigative journalists, and they all tell me that in order to conduct an objective professional investigation, one must be open to explore possibilities as new ‘nuggets of truth‘ information are revealed and events unfold. Some truths are very painful or too shocking to accept and one may be in deep denial of the truth. One way to solve a mystery is to be open and eliminate unlikely possibilities.

One documentary filmmaker shared that he uses his 6th sensei.e. his intuition, gut feel, and inner voice. I use my leadership and management investigative problem-solving skills as an international change expert. I also tend to use my 6th sense and my 7th sense defined as sensing through the connection of Higher Powers, Angels, etc.

Here I share some scenarios, and hopefully shed some light on this biggest aviation mystery.

NOTE: As the wreckage evidence and black box are still not found at the publishing time, these possible scenarios are purely for investigative discussion and poll purposes. No one is blamed. A person is innocent until he is proven guilty.

Terrorist or crazy passenger hijack
Conspiracy theorists are having a field day creating improbable and over-dramatic scenarios.

It is very clear from the flight path data that whoever flew MH370 was a very experienced pilot with full command of cockpit controls. This alone eliminates hijackers. From history hijackers had only basic or very limited flying or cockpit control experience like 911 hijack pilots, or no flying experience. All passengers had since been cleared of terrorist links. There were no terrorist’s claims or demands.

If MH370 was supposed to a 911-type hijacking, there’s only a very short window of say less than 60 minutes to hit the target. For example in 911, the crew and passengers were banging down the door in United Airlines 93.

It took 19 hijackers to hijack the four 911 planes, that is 4-5 hijackers to secure the cockpit of one plane. But MH370 was most likely flown by a single very experienced pilot.

But the flight path deviated from all the busy flight routes, city areas and radars.

One of the most common accusations by the victims’ families was there was a cover-up and that the Malaysian and US governments were secretly negotiating a hostage situation and that the plane had landed in Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan. Yet both governments stressed that they would have detected the plane, and did not. The SOP for hijackings is most governments will quickly reveal to the media, although secret negotiation deals will not be revealed until it is over. Hijackers usually want the world’s media attention to report on their cause. It would be extremely hard to explain to the world that the government had been hiding a hostage situation.

Did the pilot planned to land on a remote airport for a 911-type attack? First of all, a Boeing 777 would need a long enough airstrip and advanced air control and only modern airports have it. Secondly, the whole world is searching for this 777, it will not escape any country’s radar.

Recently it was revealed to me that there are military airports in the Indian Ocean where the plane can easily land.

Hijacked planes would never fly to an unplanned destination in middle of a remote ocean for 7.5 hours. It makes no sense.

Fire disaster or catastrophic accident
Some speculated a fire from the 200 kg lithium batteries cargo could cut off all data and transponder systems. And the pilots might have tried to turn back to save the plane, with contact systems down.

If the fire had knocked the pilots unconscious after they had programmed it, the auto-pilot will be programmed to head for some easy and nearby airport to land such as Langkawi.

And if the pilots died after the cabin lost pressure as in the Payne Stewart Lear jet auto pilot case that flew for four hours, the plane would have ended very west in Africa.

Disaster or accident is obviously going to be the most ‘convenient’ and popular reason people will choose. By human nature, most people predictably would not want to blame anyone. But, the implications just don’t match up.

The hardest mystery to explain is why did the plane for 7.5 hours turned back, avoided airports, busy flight paths, and radar; and ended up way down south of the Indian Ocean, thousands of miles away from the nearest airport, with no distress calls, and the communication and transponder deliberately turned off 26 minutes early into the flight with a 14 minute interval.

Pilot suicide or sabotage
If it was not a hijack, then it would narrow down to the pilot and co-pilot.

The 27 year old co-pilot Fariq Abdul Hamid did not fit the profile. As he had a lot to live for, a wedding soon to a female pilot, and living a good life.

The Captain Zaharie Ahmad Shah had a political ideology. Born in Penang and was a known opposition supporter. He worked as a poll monitor during the last General Election on May 5, 2013.

On March 7, 2014 the Malaysian court sentenced the opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim to five years injail after overturning his acquittal on sodomy charges. It deeply shocked the 51% Malaysian voters who voted for the opposition.

The captain might have been deeply troubled about the one hour decision and rushed sentencing of Anwar, as this would likely mean that he cannot legally run for Prime Minister’s office in the next election in 4 years’ time.

Whether he was actually at or near the court room did not matter as shocking news is shocking news.
A deep, desperate loss of hope. The last straw on the camel’s back triggered him to act on what he might had practiced and planned for months.

Seven hours later he took command of MH370 and flew off at 12:41 am.

Most suicide pilots were known to quickly crash the plane to shorten the agony like in EgyptAir from JFK, and SilkAir from Jakarta.

Until today the respective governments, communities, and the pilots’ families refuse to accept pilot suicide for EgyptAir and SilkAir.

So why would the captain go through all the trouble to avoid radar and fly for 7 hours 30 minutes (12:41am to the last satellite contact at 8:19 am MYT).

Unless he wanted to bring the world’s attention on Malaysia and its problems. And to prolong the world’s attention for as long as possible, he would have to crash the plane somewhere very remote like the south of the Indian Ocean. It would make it extremely difficult to locate in some of the deepest ocean depths and might take a few years as in the Air France AF447 from Brazil.

You cannot compare an extremely disturbed mind with a normal mind.
Some friends had come up openly to support and defend the Captain and that he was a community-minded person, and a responsible pilot.
Yes he was – when he was in a NORMAL state of mind.

But you can never compare a person in a normal situation with one when he was extremely disturbed.
That’s absolutely no logic why disturbed people do crazy things during heated emotions or in a disturbed state of mind.

Just compare how irrational and highly emotional and erratic many family members of victims have been behaving under the tremendous roller coaster stress and it may give you a tiny clue of the state of mind of the pilot who was in a much more intense circumstances.

Very few can understand what went on in the mind of the pilot – unless you suffer from depression or rage yourself. Or you have lived with someone who suffered depression, rage, or suicide tendencies.

His mind would be under extreme stress, his emotional brain which is 24 times more powerful will override his logical brain.

Pilot heroic mission or protest went wrong One scenario not explored at all is a pilot heroic mission gone bad.

The captain might initially wanted to fly the plane and land safely on one of the airports which he had practiced intensively in his home flight simulator. He would then be hailed as a pilot hero with a mission to tell the world why he did that.

He might have wanted to bring the world’s attention to what was happening in Malaysia i.e. the sentencing of opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim, tyranny, corruption, incompetency, gerrymandering in elections, racial and religious tensions, etc. Unfortunately… that heroic mission went really wrong.

After the co-pilot last words “All right, good night”, he told his co-pilot to go for a break, or to do something. The Captain locked the cockpit door. He shut the data and transponder systems 14 minutes apart.

The co-pilot and the crew banged at the door when he returned. The captain was very pressured by the constant banging, and he panicked. The captain climbed the jet to 45,000 feet above the approved altitude limit to temporarily knock unconscious the crew and passengers through lack of oxygen so that they would not disturb his heroic plan.

The plane suddenly flapped back and forth and dived unevenly to 23,000 feet. It then cruised at a low 12,000 feet.

He opened the communication phone to hear for sounds and voices of the crew. There were no sounds of life, but were likely to be still alive.

He freaked out. He thought what if he landed on nearest airport and they found out that some passengers had died or were critically injured from the quick ascend and the sudden flapping and diving. Previously he was extremely disturbed and highly emotionally charged to carry out his heroic mission. Now his logic and stark reality returned.

He realized that he would no longer be a hero. He became despaired, lost, indecisive, and paralyzed. But pilot suicide was not an option for him. He let the auto-pilot fly south aimlessly for a few precious hours.

The thought came to save the plane and the passengers but he ran out of real options in the vast Indian Ocean… thousands of miles from the nearest airport.

The plane was nearly out of fuel… he thought the only option is to land in the sea…

The plane ran out of fuel… the captain glided and landed the plane in the sea at 8:19 am.

MH370 eventually sank into a 2 miles ocean depth.

And in a weird, ironic way his mission was accomplished in bringing the world’s attention on Malaysia and its issues…

If MH370 crash was due to the psychological state of the captain, then we will never know what happened to MH370, and why it happened.

I predict that the MH370 air crash investigation would be hotly debated for years to come – with no acceptable overall conclusion for everybody.

But the dead MH370 pilot do tell tales.

If the bodies of the victims are found and not too decomposed, dead bodies do tell tales i.e. they reveal a lot clues.

Families will need to find closure somehow, and I’m afraid that it’s going to be a very long search for the wreckage and black box.

Meanwhile, we pray for the souls of MH370, their families, and anyone affected by this global episode.